The potential impact that student projects can create is often undervalued. A systematic and well planned approach of executing student projects by leveraging FOSS can energize the student community, add a significant value to their career, and most importantly, help onboard new contributors to the FOSS community. Besides, it helps create a self-sustaining ecosystem where students realize the significance of working on open-source projects and making contributions. This talk will present case studies of revitalizing student projects by using FOSS at the National Institute of Technology Karnataka (NITK), Surathkal, India.

The following points will be discussed:

1. Why is it important to revitalize student projects?

2. How can FOSS help in this process?

3. How effective can a student project be for the FOSS community?

4. Case Study 1: Several thousands of LoC and 18+ new models for network protocols; merged in ns-3.

5. Case Study 2: Generic Ubuntu cache deployed at NITK Surathkal; reducing latency!

6. Case Study 3: A new packet scheduler to solve Bufferbloat; merged in Linux v5.6.

7. Case Study 4: A new network emulator developed from scratch; used and funded by industries.

8. Case Study 5: Migrating University Campus network to IPv6 using FOSS

9. Case Study 6: The journey of students from open-source software to open Internet Standards!